Men’s Health and Well-Being: The Case Against a Separate Field

This article begins with an examination of the development of the academic and
policy field of men’s health and well-being. This includes the form and shape of the
field, its ideological positivity, and the different, sometimes contradictory, interests
that construct the field. This prompts the question: why study men’s health? Diverse
possible answers to this question are outlined, in terms of different personal, policy
and theoretical political contexts of men’s relations to feminism, gender and gender
equality. These differing contexts are further elaborated through attention to the importance
of transnational political contexts. The article concludes with discussion of
the special journal issue to which this article relates, with a coda on ageing and the
body.